PORTLAND -- A manufacturer of the popular diet drug known as "fen-phen" has reached a post-trial settlement voiding a jury's negligence verdict and a $29 million award to a Bandon woman and her son for heart problems blamed on the drug, lawyers said Wednesday.
Terms of the settlement were confidential, including how much money goes to the plaintiffs, but the verdict against American Home Products was vacated after it had been entered by the judge.
Last June, a Coos County jury in Coquille found the drug combination sold by American Home under the name Pondimin caused heart problems for Juanita Batson, 58, and her son, Richard Wirt, 40.
Batson and Wirt were awarded $29 million, including $23.3 million in punitive damages.
Batson, who drives a bus, used the fen-phen diet drug for nine months to a year prior to its removal in 1997. Wirt, who works at a grocery store, took it for four months.
"I'm pleased with the outcome," Wirt said Wednesday. "It is a relief."
American Home had no comment on the settlement, said spokesman Doug Petkus.
It was likely American Home would have been able to pay substantially less than the $29 million jury award under the agreement, said Caroline Forell, a University of Oregon Law School professor.
Under Oregon law, 60 percent of any punitive damages go to the state for victim assistance. Also, the plaintiffs get their money immediately, rather than having to wait years for appeals to run their course while facing the possibility of losing. For American Home, the advantage is that there will be no negligence verdict that can be cited in other cases.
Mark Spooner, a Los Angeles attorney who represents American Home, said a Friday hearing has been canceled where the company would have asked a judge to reduce the award or grant a new trial. The hearing was a preliminary step required before any appeals could be filed.
Spooner said the settlement in the Oregon case was not related to a federal judge's approval this week in Philadelphia of a proposed $3.57 billion national settlement of the majority of the more than 9,000 diet drug lawsuits against American Home, based in Madison, N.J.
Under the national settlement, fen-phen users would get up to $1.5 million each, though most would get far less, depending on their level of injury and how long they took the drugs. The settlement also includes money for future medical monitoring.
About 6 million people in the United States were prescribed fen-phen by the time a 1997 Mayo Clinic study linked fenfluramine -- the fen in the drug combination -- to potentially fatal heart valve damage. The second drug in the combination, phentermine, was not linked to any problems.
